After Action Review
Chapter 3.5 (Mastery)
Draft 4/17/09
“An AAR [After Action
Review] does not grade success or failure. There are always weaknesses to
improve and strengths to sustain.” – U.S. ARMY
A manager proposed a new approach
to organizing customers in her region expecting to increase sales calls by 5%
over the next 6 months. They
increased 12%. A colleague also
experimented with a new approach with the same goal in mind but actually
recorded a 10% drop. Although we
don’t know for certain which approach will be most successful in the long run,
do we at least know who has learned the most from the experience? No, we don’t know that either.
All things being equal, of course,
we would rather experience a 12% increase than a 10% decrease in sales. If we could replicate the actions of
the first manager, we would probably do so. However, for us or for either of the two managers to learn
the most from the experience, we need a more thorough analysis to understand
what happened and why. The US
military uses an excellent approach to do this – an After Action Review
(AAR). It serves as a model for
managers or anyone else who wants to achieve a mastery level in making the most
of their experiences. (See http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/tc_25-20/table.htm)
These after action reviews include
all the participants in the action and have a simple design. They ask a few,
clear questions:
1. What
was supposed to happen? (i.e. What did we intend?)
2. What
actually happened?
3. Why
was there a difference between what we set out to do and what actually
happened?
4. What
do we do next time? (Which
activities do we continue to do? Which activities do we do differently?)
You will notice that as in Chapter
(3.2), the questions include both what?
and why? questions.
The first two questions set the stage. You cannot fairly evaluate an activity
without being clear on its intent. Likewise, you cannot draw conclusions properly
without clarity on the facts of the outcomes. That enables you to contrast the
differences between intentions and outcomes. Finally, the concluding questions
do not label things as right or wrong, but direct attention to actions that
should be maintained and those that should be changed and improved. As you can see, you learn from
these questions regardless of the answers you receive.
David Garvin has studied AARs in
the military and similar practices in leading corporations. (See Leaning in Action, Putting the
Learning Organization to Work (2000) and
“Building a Learning Organization” (Harvard Business Review, July/Aug. 1993). According to Garvin, AARs “have a number of strict requirements. Among the most
critical are immediacy, broad participation, a structured process, the
availability of objective data, skilled facilitation, attention to recording
and dissemination, and a climate of openness and candor. Even more important,
however, is simple repetition. Unless reviews are carried out routinely at all
levels of the organization, they will never be viewed as more than an
interesting diversion. Consistency breeds comfort and acceptance.”
That is another reason that I label
after action reviews a “mastery-level” practice. AARs are simple in concept, but they require commitment and
discipline. First, an organization
or individual needs to make the time to invest in the after action review. Most busy people move immediately from
one action to another. Regardless
of whether they have experienced success or failure, they feel impelled to move
on. Second, it is easy to skip
steps, by making assumptions that there is already clarity and agreement, for
example, regarding what was intended and what happened. Those assumptions often turn out not to
be correct. Third, it can be
difficult for leaders to refrain from putting their own interpretations on
events, reducing the likelihood of good input from other participants. Fourth, as described in Chapter (4.3),
maintaining self-image is a key dynamic in human behavior. It is hard to remain open when your
actions are under scrutiny.
Creating a non-blame culture is difficult, but essential.
With practice, groups can
incorporate after action reviews into their normal way of living and doing
business. In essence, AARs are a
structured way to implement many of the practices described in this book. In the early stages, facilitation will
be very helpful. As the practice becomes
ingrained, AARs may happen spontaneously even while a project is on going to
help make mid-course corrections.
Application: Try an after action review on a successful project
to experience the process in a relatively non-stressful situation and then
extend to other events. Begin with
a facilitator, at least for early AARs.